MOSCOW, July 24. /TASS/. No breakthrough was expected during another round of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"We did not expect any breakthroughs. A breakthrough is hardly possible," the Kremlin official said, replying to a question about the assessment of the results of yesterday’s meeting between delegations.

Peskov noted that, following the third round of the negotiations, Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation, confirmed the two sides’ diametrically opposing approaches to draft memorandums.

A third round of direct Russia-Ukraine talks on the Ukrainian settlement took place in Istanbul on July 23. Before a collective meeting, delegation heads Vladimir Medinsky and Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, held a one-on-one conversation. The collective meeting lasted about 40 minutes during which the sides discussed the positions outlined in draft memorandums.

Following the meeting, the sides agreed to exchange not only servicemen but also civilians. Russia proposed to Ukraine to create three online working groups for the resolution of political, military and humanitarian issues. Additionally, Moscow offered to return to the Kiev regime another 3,000 bodies of Ukrainian servicemen as well as to resume brief humanitarian pauses on the line of engagement in order to collect the wounded and the bodies of those killed.

The decision on a fourth round of the negotiations will be made once new agreements are put into effect, Medinsky said.